Want a real-life story worthy of Marvel Comics’ long-running series What If? The current wave of Marvel movies could have happened a lot earlier, or much differently, if plans begun in the early ’70s had come to fruition.

The late French director Alain Resnais, who died just a week ago, was responsible for some of the most powerful films in French cinema. The concentration camp documentary Night and Fog led to Hiroshima Mon Amour, which developed a narrative take on memory and relationships that deepened in Last Year at Marienbad and Je t’aime Je t’aime. (That’s just the beginning of his work.) Resnais is known as a science fiction fan, and genre and experimental fiction crept into his films in significant ways.

Resnais was also a lover of comic books. He claims he learned English by reading Marvel Comics, and he once wanted to make a Tintin film, decades before Spielberg and Jackson got around to it. In 1972, Resnais connected with Stan Lee of Marvel, and the two ultimately worked on a pair of scripts together. Neither was ever made, but just imagine what might have come to pass, had they gone before cameras. Read More »